I Will Run No Race before My Time
Contributed by Alys Culhane
I was totally disheartened to read Marilyn Bennet’s article in the March issue of the People’s Paper, entitled “The Progress of Women.” Here Bennett rightly notes that girl’s and women’s sports have made major advancements since she was in high school in the 1950s. And additionally, she rightly takes great pride in the fact that her granddaughter is being able to experience sports-related opportunities, mainly due to the passage of Title 9.
However, her argument that allowing transgendered individuals to compete in the sex that they identify with is anti-progressive is an erroneous assumption. Being allowed to compete in the sex one identifies with is progressive. Transgendered individuals have the best chance to thrive when they are supported and treated like their peers. School athletic programs are an excellent venue for this, for here they learn the rudiments of teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership, and self-discipline. Belonging. To prohibit them from training and competing with classmates is mean spirited and demoralizing.
I’m troubled overall by the sentiments of those who put an overemphasis on competition, rather than personal best. It should not matter who comes in ahead of you, and matter even less if that individual is a male identifying as a female.
My experiences as a student athlete bear this out. I was the first woman to run track on my high school cross-country and high school teams. I ran one year prior to Title 9, and two years after. I did not have access to a locker room at practices or home or away meets. I was not issued a team uniform. I did not have an understanding coach. Title 9 was then, just an abstraction.
I ran against guys. I started out running low hurdles and picked a lot of gravel out of my knees. I routinely got my ass kicked. My motto became, “I will run no race before my time.” I figured out that my forte was long distance running, and every so often, came in second last. I was the first woman to run and finish the Rochester, NY marathon. My claim to fame was that I came in ahead of Robert Forster, a well-known actor.
This is what I learned and has served me in good stead as an athlete. How I placed in a race became increasingly less important as time went on. What mattered most was what some call one’s “personal best.” I cannot tell you how I placed in any events that I competed in, in high school or running cross country in college. But I can tell you that I lowered my two-mile time by an entire minute. This is something that I remain proud of. Others thought similarly and so it was for this that I earned the respect of my peers and a varsity letter.
I have since graduating from college run several marathons. My coming in second, third, or fourth to a transgendered person was never foremost on my mind. Lowering my overall time, running my first marathon in 4:54, and my last in 3:17, still stands as one my life’s greatest accomplishments.
That transgendered teens are allowed to participate on women’s teams is not, as Bennett states, a backward step for women’s rights, but rather a move forward since “equality” has, and remains, a cornerstone of this movement.
Let us not forget those who came before us. In 1967, Kathrine Virginia Switzer became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as an officially registered competitor. This was an amazing feat, particularly since some of the race organizers attempted to pull her off course during the race.
Would Switzer have cared had she been beaten by a transgendered woman? I suspect not. Rather, she’d champion the efforts of such individuals, well knowing what it’s like to be excluded from a competitive event on the basis of one’s sex.
I feel sorry for those, who on the sidelines of women’s sporting events, are sending a message to young women, this being that being on the topmost step of the podium is what’s most important. Rather than exclude transgendered individuals from sporting events, let’s encourage them to participate in the same, and consider them to be full-fledged team members. Inclusion is a game changer. Exclusion is not.